Fugitive Structures

Vo Trong Nghia Architects proposal for Fugitive Structures commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation is a pure bamboo structure.The pavilion made out of bamboo is made out of a single unit which in this case is a traditional Vietnamese handmade bamboo ladder. The brief stated that the pavilion was to be installed across several sites and so we sought to design a structure that could be easily assembled and disassembled easily while keeping the traditional way of joining bamboo by rope, reducing the steal elements for only the foundation and the roof joints. The repetition of this unit creates a porous structure of different heights that end up becoming an open structure only protected by an acrylic roof, which allows the visitor to see the sky maximizing the feeling of openness. The usage of a system that starts from a single unit and which repeats itself give this structure the feeling of being a part of a bigger structure as this way of repetition could extend limitless on the space, only limited by the walls and borders of the different sites. Separately to the bamboo structure, we embed into the structure the plant pots which are strategically positioned and that are filled with bougainvillea plants, this plants are a recall to nature and with time they will stop being something individual and will start becoming part of the structure as the plant will grow and climb through it. This structure is not made to shelter the visitor but to let them walk and see through it ,becoming an object that interacts with people from the outside, letting them discovering the bamboo of the structure, the natural bamboo details and the vegetation that grows from the inside, but is not allowing the visitor to reach the core of the grid.